Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for sharing a hosted device in a computer network.
Description Of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
In modern computing systems, computing devices are connected to each other via computer networks. Computing devices in such computer networks are frequently coupled to special purpose peripheral devices such as printers, scanners, and so on. Because the computing devices that host these special purpose peripheral devices are connected to other computing devices in a computer network, it is beneficial to share the special purpose peripheral devices amongst the computing devices in the computer network.
Sharing these special purpose peripheral devices amongst the computing devices in the computer network is typically carried out by mapping, in one computing device, a path (e.g., //computing device/peripheral) to a special purpose peripheral device that includes an identifier of the computing device that hosts the special purpose peripheral device. In the event that the computing device that hosts the special purpose peripheral device fails, the special purpose peripheral device may be moved and hosted by another computing device in the computer network. Moving the special purpose peripheral device, however, has the unfortunate consequence of necessitating that all other computing devices in the computer network re-map a new path to the special purpose peripheral device—a new path (e.g., //new computing device/peripheral) that includes an identifier of the computing device that now hosts the special purpose peripheral device.